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Decorative drawing: an ornate nineteenth-century American house. Not a photograph of this place.

Montgomery Saltbox Houses

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.

From the record

“The Montgomery Saltbox Houses are a pair of historic saltbox houses in Montgomery, Ohio, United States. Built in 1800, they were constructed as homes for some of the city's founding families, who settled in the area in the spring of 1795 after travelling from Montgomery in eastern New York in the aftermath of the signing of the Treaty of Greenville.”

Wikipedia article Montgomery Saltbox Houses, CC BY-SA 4.0.

one of 314 National Register listings in Hamilton County · listed in 1987 · category: Building · one of 9 National Historic Landmarks in Hamilton County.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. 7789 and 7795 Cooper Rd., Montgomery, 45242
  • When was it listed? 1987-07-28
  • Category. building
  • Township. Montgomery city
  • National Register reference number. 87001254 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

The ground it stands on

5,093 words

The chapter on Montgomery City in History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881 names Montgomery. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

It is thought by some that inroads were made upon the forest and improvements begun by white men upon the present site of Montgomery as early as the fall of 1794; but the earliest trustworthy date is fixed one year from that time, when a colony of six families came in from Ulster county. New York. They were headed, respectively, by three brothers Felter - Jacob, Irominius, and David - Cornelius Snyder, Nathaniel Terwilliger, and Jacob Rosa. All were Felter families, indeed, in this, that the three brothers sired one-half of them, and their three sisters - Mesdames Snyder, TerwiIITgef,"and~ Rosa - were mothers to the other three. It is seldom that a pioneer colony is thus uniquely made up. Snyder bought of Thomas Espy, June 27, 1796, the whole of section four, for one thousand four hundred and forty dollars. Here the first improvements v?ere made by the party. August ist of the same year Terwilliger bought of Judge Symmes the southwest quarter of section three, upon which section Montgomery is situated, and began the clearing of that tract shortly after. Nearly five years afterwards - May 5, 1801 - he also bought the north half of the section, and upon it laid out the town of Montgomery. It was surveyed in 1802; but the recorded plat of this bears date the ninth of August, 1805. It is situated on the Montgomery pike, two and one-half miles from the south line of the township, and one and a half miles from Montgomery station, in Symmes township.

Passage source: History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881.

Like most towns of its size Montgomery has no written history. Situated on a leading road, it became a resting place for teamsters and travellers, and so grew up from a single tavern to what it now is, a town of five hundred inhabitans. A log cabin formed the first tavern of the place. This was situated on the southeast corner of Main and Mechanic streets, on what is now known as the Station road, and kept by John Osborn. A man named Yost opened another tavern on the diagonel corner. Some idea of the extent of travel, or the drinking habits of the people of that time (1809), may be formed when we state that a fifty-barrel supply of whiskey for the year failed to meet the demand upon Yost's bar.

Passage source: History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, published 1881.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Montgomery City - 5,093 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Specimens collected near this property

12 of 5,243 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 5,243 specimens collected within 10 miles of Montgomery Saltbox Houses between 1819 and 1975: 3,402 Fungi, 1,045 Animalia, 434 Plantae, 326 Protozoa, 25 Unrecorded, 11 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by 14753, A. Braun, A. Gaufin and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Corticium polyporoideum Berk. & M.A.CurtisCorticium polyporoideum Berk. & M.A.Curtis1899C.G. LloydCincinnati
Specimen of Microsphaera diffusa Cooke & PeckMicrosphaera diffusa Cooke & Peck1899Aiken, Walter H.Cincinnati
Specimen of Puccinia extensicola Plowr.Puccinia extensicola Plowr.1900Aiken, Walter H.Cincinnati
A photograph of the species Quercus leana, not of this specimenQuercus × leana Nutt.1819Thomas Nuttall3 miles North of Cincinnati
A photograph of the species Sebacina calcea, not of this specimenSebacina calcea (Pers.) Bres.1827Lloyd C. G.Linwood
A photograph of the species Rhus venenata, not of this specimenRhus venenata DC.1830Clark, JosephNorth of Cincinnati
A photograph of the species Carex comosa, not of this specimenCarex comosa Boott1835Collector unspecifiedIn citivate Ohio prope Cincinnati. [Inferred locality from precise loc.]
A photograph of the species Carex lupulina, not of this specimenCarex lupulina Muhl. ex Willd.1835Collector unknown
A photograph of the species Carex sparganioides, not of this specimenCarex sparganioides Muhl. ex Willd.1835Collector unknown
A photograph of the species Carex amphibola, not of this specimenCarex amphibola Steud.1837Collector unknownIn citivate Ohio prope Cincinnati.
A photograph of the species Carex suberecta, not of this specimenCarex suberecta (Olney) Britton1837Collector unspecifiedCincinnati.
A photograph of the species Philonotis longiseta, not of this specimenPhilonotis longiseta (Michx.) E.Britton1838T. G. Lea

All 5,243 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Montgomery Saltbox Houses: 1 unknown, 1 past producer, 1 plant. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Zirconium, Titanium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Continental Mineral/ Sharonville OhZirconium, TitaniumUnknown
Camp Dennison PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Camp Dennison PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionPlant

Every working recorded in Hamilton County

Storms near this property

8 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Montgomery, the town this property stands in, in 8 storm reports between 2009 and 2020: 5 hail, 2 flood, 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 2009HailMontgomery$5,000no account filed
June 2015Thunderstorm WindMontgomery$1,000Power lines were downed on Montgomery Road.
January 2012FloodMontgomery$1,000High water due to heavy rain was reported on Interstate 71 near Interstate 275.
July 2013FloodMontgomery-High water was over the ramp from Ronald Reagan Highway to Montgomery Road due to heavy rainfall.
April 2020HailMontgomery-no account filed
December 2018HailMontgomery-no account filed
March 2017HailMontgomery-no account filed
July 2012HailMontgomery-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Hamilton County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

From the nomination file

4,400 words on record

When this property was proposed for the National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is, and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain. It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s typewriter's.

Description of the property

the east,3) a two-bay rear addition with a sloping roof which Cooper Road have been spared because this street changed little. west road that was the spine of the 24 irregularly shaped lots in VUL-deteriorated Form No. 10-300a UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM MONTGOMERY"SALTBOX"HOUSES, Montgomery, Hamilton Co., OH CONTINUATION SHEET ITEM NUMBER #7 6/6 double hung sash that is very close to the floor, and the the cooking space which still has the crane, the mantel has a Frary's Early Homes of Ohio, P. 243, photos pp. 267-270.

In Although the ceiling has been stuccoed, the hand hewn doorway, and the fourth has the large From the one-story part of the house, a doorway leads to than the one-room part, and may date from the 1820-1845 period. first floor only, and random width plank floors throughout. A room on the west wall of the first floor, but there is no In the lean-to addition to the rear, which is also early, has the typical two steps outside the door at the bottom, and a steep single flight up. At a turn at the top of the stairs, a PAGE fireplace.

RECEIVED summer beam and sills to give more spacious one-room structures attic with board partitions.In the fourth part of the the only stairway in the house is enclosed with board walls.It The interior of the one-story part of7789 Cooper Road is evidence of a fireplace in this structure.

Read the complete 4,400-word case file.

Statement of significance

(in one paragraph) tationsof this New England house type left in Hamilton Co. ...engineering -. archeology-prehistoric _community planning _ religion The Frame "Saltbox" House at 7789 Cooper Rd. and the Brick spine, now Cooper Road. attractive. Traveling through Pittsburgh, down the Ohio River, Southwest Ohio by the strong influx of New York and New Jersey was platted, has extant representations of "saltboxes." The Montgomery interpretations resultedofrom lean-to additions to two simple Federal style buildings. The houses do not feature the larger scale or the families who came from the area around Montgomery, Orange Jersey. landscape architecture The two houses also help reconstruct the story of the forms the main intersection with Montgomery Road.These two capital.

Under Criterion C,the saltbox houses are well preserved local interpretations of a New England house type that is found County, New York.They arrived in the spring of 1795,the year That part of the village's early history 9.

The whole case file for this property - 4,400 words, 38 pages, reproduced complete.

Quoted from the National Register nomination for reference 87001254, 38 pages, held by the National Archives in Record Group 79. See the catalogue record.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Yost Tavernunder 500 feet1993
Universalist Church Historic District0.1 miles1970
Blair House0.3 miles1982
Wilder-Swaim House0.3 miles1981
Sunny Knolls--Pape, Gordon E., House0.8 miles2006
Elliott House1.8 miles1976

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 87001254 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Hamilton CountyAll 314 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
  • Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
  • How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
  • Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
  • Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
  • Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.